Is there an aether?

[xelasnave]

It seems the Greeks had an idea that space was made up of an aether which from what I can tell semed to be their way of saying space comprised of many particles..aether seems to have been thrown out as old hat but I ask given the stuff that flies around out there is not the Greeks idea more valid than a space that is seen as now somewhat empty?.

Here is one of many articles pointing to what I would think is the aether of the Greeks however popular science says there is none..so I ask is ather really an old outdated concept..

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0307182745.htm

alex

[Dog Star (Phil)]

Interesting thought, Alexander. Hmm, I'm probably going to be shot down in spectacular fashion here, but the Greeks proposed that all matter was composed of, or a result of, the interplay of four basic elements ie. fire, water, air and earth. Taken literaly, that would suggest that most things were composed of warm, bubbly mud. The ancient Greeks were of course not that stupid and intended that such elements were of a philosophical as opposed to physical nature. Ok, the science is a "little fuzzy" but given the meagre state of their measuring instruments (often consisting of little more than a pair of eyes and a blunt knife) some of their attempts to explain the world around them were actually fairly concise. Their concept that aether was what made up anything not composed of the 4 basic elements is, as you suggest, not a bad description of the nature of space itself and as such is probably worthy of more respect than is usually given it. I suspect however, that we're sailing a two man boat here. Incoming!!

[Zuts]

Hi,

Not only is it important to be right, it is important to be right for the correct reason. If the Greeks are right then I dont think it was for the right reasons. More just a lucky guess.

Paul

[Glenhuon (Bill)]

Move over Alex and Dog Star and hand me that spare paddle
The Greeks saw the cosmos according to the knowledge and theory of the times, much the same as we do today, so in effect they were correct in assuming that there was no place in it that was "empty". There had to be something that was undetectable in those times. (Etherial).

Bill

[avandonk]

Alex is dead right about the aether as usual they do not understand! It was shown to not exist by the Michelson Morley experiment. Google it I am not your Physics lecturer!


As for the ancient Greeks they were as smart as us, and just as much stuck in their times as how they thought about their current paradigm.

JUST AS WE ARE!

Bert

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by avandonk

As for the ancient Greeks they were as smart as us, and just as much stuck in their times as how they thought about their current paradigm.

JUST AS WE ARE!

Bert

Hi,

I disagree with you absolutely.

I think it is easy to belittle the accomplishments of the 20th century, contributions made by literally millions of scientists to build a fundamental base of knowledge that will stand the test of time.

Fundamental knowledge that unfortunately I and probably you know very little about.

Paul

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by Zuts

Hi,

I disagree with you absolutely.

I think it is easy to belittle the accomplishments of the 20th century, contributions made by literally millions of scientists to build a fundamental base of knowledge that will stand the test of time.

Fundamental knowledge that unfortunately I and probably you know very little about.

Paul

Now that's what I like to hear, some good old fashioned faith!

Seriously though Paul, before being quite so scathing about (any past) ethos or its' paradigm; and ignoring for the moment the somewhat tautological aspects of your statement; it would be wise to do some thorough research and appraisal of that which your comments appear to debase.

That is, of course, aside from "a fundamental base of knowledge that will stand the test of time" that Ancient Greek science and philosophy has contributed to our current "knowledge".....

Regards, Darryl. - ps I'm a blackfella with Irish and German blood: no Greek though, but I did buy a Greek fella's house - and I do like the olives and oil I get from the trees he planted!!!

[omnivorr]

..and what was the "fundamental base of knowledge" on which those "millions of C20th scientists" built??

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by omnivorr

..and what was the "fundamental base of knowledge" on which those "millions of C20th scientists" built??

Hey dere Russ - youse ain't startin' to stalk me agins, is yer?!?

Cheers, Darryl.

[Dog Star (Phil)]

Zuts, Old Mate, I don't think it was anyones intention to belittle 21st century science (it certainly wasn't mine) but rather to suggest that some of the older schools of thought are worth revisiting from time to time. You only have to look at some of the current controversies in modern science eg dark matter and string theory to see that modern science is not as cut and dried and "total" as we might wish it to be. There's always more to be learnt. Just for the record, I don't claim to understand a lot of it myself. Cheers.

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by omnivorr

..and what was the "fundamental base of knowledge" on which those "millions of C20th scientists" built??

Yes well,

The Greeks had a 'fundamental' knowledge of atoms. Of course they had no real scientific method and Plato believed that it was possible to deduce all there was to know from an armchair.

I guess thats why there are no Bikini like incidents emanating from Ancient Greece. Probably also why they had to take rations to the Moon, a dearth of Souvlaki shops.

Paul

[Kokatha man]

Originally Posted by Zuts

Yes well,


I guess thats why there are no Bikini like incidents emanating from Ancient Greece. Paul

As I said Paul, some reading of Greek history might dispell some of these "myths" - if you'll pardon the pun!

Cheers, Darryl.

[Zuts]

Originally Posted by Kokatha man

As I said Paul, some reading of Greek history might dispell some of these "myths" - if you'll pardon the pun!

Cheers, Darryl.

No problem Darryl, you may like to read this as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism, not much of a tool though if one wishes to split one.

Cheers Paul

[omnivorr]

Zuts me lad, a sense of proportion might be in order..

As Sir Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen a little farther than others, it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants."

...google "humility" while yer at it , you'll find it somewhere between "humbug" and "Humpty Dumpty"

[skwinty (Steve)]

Stephen Hawkin wrote a book called "On the shoulders of Giants"
He implies that the advancement of science is through incremental changes"
This includes the work of the early Greeks.
As for the Michelson-Morley experiment, it failed to prove or disprove the existence of the ether.
It was made of full and half mirrors and an eye piece to measure 1/4 wavelengths of light inteference patterns. It was called the Michelson interferometer.
It was used very successfully in various esoteric experiments, such as the butterfly bending the steel girder and remains my favourite piece of equipment. Very simple and easy to make.

[omnivorr]

...as for the original post, ..I don't much care, aether way

[Kokatha man]

Hi again Paul, read through the wiki link you supplied: potted, but nonetheless a good canvass of particular aspects, as are most wikis.

Couldn't help appreciating the thread (pardon the analogy) that ran through this article; linking these quite profound ancient postulants and their claims to current debates/thinking/theorizing.

My only reservations re wiki-type precis' is the absence of relational factors; whether it be in a discourse on the (lasting) relevance of an ancient paradigm, or (other) quite (seemingly) different topics.

Anyways, good vigorous exchanges! An I'm givin' you yer teeth back omnivorr!

Cheers, Darryl.

[omnivorr]

... fangs Darryl the omni's bin bit'ard ter swallow lately

[avandonk]

Sorry to be such a pain but how many of you could

Design a simple amplifier any sort will do, logic circuits would almost do

Fix a basic manual gearbox let alone use one

Fix your washing machine, fridge or dunny

Do you know how the ignition system in your car works?

Align a spectrophotometer

Fix the television if it fails or partially fails apart from a bang on the side.

I could go on and on and on ....

You are all as ignorant as the last lot
A vast mass of humanity without a clue!


We as individuals only have the scantiest knowledge of all that is currently known.

Look at the current crop of the smartest guys in the room (financial idiots), paying themselves multi millions and they have really lost the plot and WE pay for it. Remember it IS your money Ralph.And YOU let them get away with it AGAIN!

Anyway to get back to the point the aether does not exist. By aether a medium for EM waves to oscillate in. I should buy you all a book on basic Physics. You can borrow it one at a time. This knowledge was slowly extracted from nature by careful experiment and the application of mathematics by peer review.


So many twits just say that something is wrong by no less than the wave of a hand. Show me and the rest of the world the proof for any assertion.

I did a search on Google and found mainly threads doubting the MM experiment. Is faith superseding fact?

Bert

[skwinty (Steve)]

Originally Posted by avandonk

I could go on and on and on ....

You are all as ignorant as the last lot
A vast mass of humanity without a clue!

I assume you consider yourself excluded from this bunch.
Matter of fact. The Michelson-Morley experiment was a huge embarrassment to Michelson that when he won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1907 he never made one mention of the experiment or its result, which was a perplexing "Null".
As for the list of can you do's, The answer is an unequivical YES.